Album Reviews

Recorded during a six show stint at tiny Cellar Door, a circa 100 seat Washington D.C. basement club November 30th through December 2nd, 1970, this 13 song collection recorded by the great Henry Lewy (thanked in the credits even though he passed away in 2006) presents Neil Young as intimately and as powerfully as you'll hear him on record.

Why it took so long for this to be released is something only Neil can explain. As a showcase of pure performing and songwriting talent it most reminds me of Randy Newman/Live (Reprise RS6459) recorded at New York's Bitter End September 17th-19th and issued in 1971.

Like this one from Young, Randy Newman/Live is a singer/songwriter showcase that's almost a publisher's demo. Of course Newman was more in need of the exposure than was Young, who had already made a name for himself in Buffalo Springfield and had released the previous August After the Goldrush, which become immediately iconic. By the time this was recorded he'd also been in CSN&Y, which released the album Deja Vu that March, and by summer had split from the group, so Neil was less in need of exposure than was Newman!

Young's stage shyness obvious in his patter completely disappears when he plays and sings unplugged and closely miked. His acoustic guitar playing is rhythmically and especially dynamically nuanced. Young intersperses silence with dramatic dynamic yet impeccably clean strum-bursts all captured as harmonically rich and perfect as you'd expect from Lewy.

The openers come as expected, from After the Goldrush: "Tell Me Why", "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" and "After the Goldrush" performed on a 9 foot Steinway that Lewy's recording nails. You think Bill Evans' piano sounds good in The Village Vanguard recordings?

Then we get a piano rendition of "Expecting to Fly" that alone is worth the price of analog admission. Young claims later in the set that he's only been playing piano seriously for a year but whatever he lacks in technique is more than made up by pure musicality and a deft touch, particularly in terms of dynamic contrasts.

"Bad Fog of Loneliness originally intended for an appearance on The Johnny Cash television show but later shelved in favor of "The Needle and the Damage Done" and "Journey Through the Past", first appeared as a studio version on the Archives Vol. 1 Blu-ray and DVD set and later on the Live at Massey Hall reissue (also highly recommended). Then it's back to After the Gold Rush for "Old Man" and the side closer "Birds".

Side B begins with the raw "end of the '60s" disillusionment of "Don't Let It Bring You Down" from After the Gold Rush and then the tender, downcast "See The Sky About to Rain", which wasn't issued on record until 1974's On the Beach, an album that was out of print for nearly twenty years until a 2003 CD release. And finally this RSD it will again be available on AAA vinyl.

The Steinway version of "Cinnamon Girl" casts the metal classic as a Joni Mitchell-style remake; it's simple riff presenting Young with the greatest difficulty to pull off on piano but of course he does. "I Am a Child" from Buffalo Springfield's Last Time Around (really multiple solo albums as the group had split but had to fulfill a contact) is next followed by "Down by the River" on guitar.

Young concludes the compilation with his Buffalo Springfield pot song "Flying on the Ground Is Wrong" accompanied by a wry explanation that today seems obvious: "it's about dope…mostly grass": he's getting stoned on weed, his girl isn't, they can no longer connect and it's a bummer." Young prefaces his explanation by sticking his hands into the piano and producing cool sounds. "This nine foot Steinway is really outta sight."

And so is Lewy's recording. Henry managed to perfectly mike Neil's voice, his guitar, the Steinway and even the audience gets the full, perfect Lewy treatment: the handclaps are perfectly recorded, the audience spread out in an arc behind the performer. Of course they should be in front of the performer and behind you, but that's the "distortion" in two channel recordings. Trust me: when you experience the eerie purity, transparency, the tonal and textural purity of this AAA production you wouldn't give up any of it to get the "surround experience" that would inevitably compromise the "you are there in front of Neil" reality that this record produces.

My reaction to this record is that it gives you more "essence of Neil" than any of his other records. It better explains his gutsy artistic greatness. I wonder why he waited so long to give it to us? It could be that this was a difficult time in Neil's life—at least judging by the downcast songs culled from the sets. Were there any that were more upbeat omitted all these years later to make the point?

Maybe he waited until it could be perfectly mastered, pressed and gatefold-presented as it is here.